Learning to Speak English

I have discovered since I've been here that I don't actually know how to speak English. In Printmaking they pronounce litho with a long i so it sounds like Lytho and aluminum is "aluminium" I wonder if it's spelled differently. Bill the "lytho" technician says they passed the language on to us so we're the ones who are mispronouncing things. I wonder what Joyce my linguistics friend would have to say about that in terms of the evolution of language.
When you are talking to some one you should not say "yeah" in response to something you agree with, as that sounds a little abrupt. Yyou should say "yeah,yeah" at minimum or "yeah, yeah, yeah" if you are really enthusiatic and "yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah" if you think something someone said is exceptional. This is said very fast and clipped, so you don't say it as slow as the Beatles did when they sang "She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah" You must do it much quicker and with a smile on your face.
Also, you don't just say "Hi". It is more common to say "Hiya", spoken as all one word.
If you are thanking someone in a casual sort of way you say "Cheers", but I have also heard it said as a sort of goodbye.
Everyone says "Are you alright?" or "Are you okay?' when they first see you. It is said with a little bit of concern in the voice. At first I thought there was some concern that I was not adapting, or that had that frown on my face that I often have, which my kids used to comment on. But it turns out that it would be like a Canadian saying, "Hi how are ya." How are you would be too formal Hayley tells me. "Are you alright" is a bit more casual but still throws me off.
Take out food is called take away, a parking lot is a car park, brilliant means very good or excellent, cheeky has the same definition as it does in Canada, it just seems to be used more.
A chav is a person with lots of money but little class or brains. The letters are an acronym for something but no one seems to be able to remember what.
Now we'll move into the swear words. Bollocks is used a lot and after much research I discovered it means bullshit, but is more acceptable and less coarse. Apparently there is a car ad with a child saying it quietly and repeatedly which everyone thinks is a little cheeky but funny. Hayley says she would never say bollocks in front of her mother but Jeri says she would. Bugger is used more often and doesn't seem to have quite the negative connotation that it does in Canada. Bloody is ok but bleedin' is apparently more offensive and that is even dependent on what part of England you are from. A wanker is...well, a wanker....you figure it out.

Visitors, Friends and Synchronicity

I had a visit Tuesday with the students and friends of UofC who are here with Bill Laing. We took a tour of the RCA (got into a bit of trouble as we visited the painting dept. without prior appoval and I guess that's a big NO NO!!) We went to the ArtPub here at RCA and then went for dinner at a fabulous Armenian restaurant just a ten minute walk away that Bill knew about. Wonderful tasty food with a huge variety of dishes, all for £10, which is about as good as it gets for a decent meal here. Then it was back to the pub (at Bill's request) I'm afraid I left them there at about 10 as I have a one hour train/bus ride home. I'd had enough of the smokey bar anyway and couldn't keep up with the drinkers (you know who you are!).
Bill came back yesterday and we went for lunch with Mark and another tutor, Bob, from the Printmaking Dept.
Today Pat Chisholm, an ACAD graduate, took me for lunch with her husband Don and their friends who live here in London. Pat and Don are flying to Spain tomorrow where they will rent a car and travel around to as yet unknown destinations. Then next weekend Jennifer from UofC will be coming and we will spend a couple of days together.
Went to Elizabeth LeMoines for dinner on Sunday night. She graduated from ACAD the same time I did. She invited her friends Ken Oliver and Sue Ferguson. Ken went to RCA with Bill Laing, Stuart Parker and Ken Webb. It's a small world! We had a fabulous meal cooked by Elizabeth. Duck with carrots, potatoes, roasted parsnips, ginger dressing and 3 bottles of wine. Lots of laughs. I enjoyed being with some people my own age.




On Sat I went to Kew Gardens, a beautiful peaceful place. When I was there madly taking photos in the gardens, a man came up and asked me what kind of camera I had. So I showed him and told him what it was and he went off with his wife. On the underground home, they ended up sitting across from me on the train, a bit of a coincidence, but not terribly because we left at closing time. The next day I went to the British Museum and when I sat down to have a drink, who should be sitting across from me at the next table but the very same couple! Now that was strange. They aren't tourists either, as they laughed and said what are you doing tomorrow, and said that they had to go to work.

Then on Mon I was here at RCA and a fellow followed me down the hallway and asked if I remembered him, and it was Isambard (Izzy) who came to ACAD as an exchange student from St. Martin's when he was doing his undergrad about 4 years ago. He graduated from RCA last year and was here talking to a student who he is setting up a studio with in the East End. Pippa in the office said it was strange that I should run into him, because he hardly ever comes up here.
I went to an opening at the William Morris House Gallery on Mon night for a show that Mark Hampson, who teaches here, curated. He has been invited to do a residency there as a visiting artist this year and has access to all the block prints that Morris used to print with. Heaven!!!
Last night I went to two openings. One show that Elizabeth was in at the Deutschbank (sp?) and then another in the East Side, where I ran into Dallas again! I guess the London art world isn't all that big.

More About the RCA

ARIES -It's been a long haul since last summer when you felt like a race horse chomping at the bit. Now you can throw off that annoying jockey and gallop as fast as you like. And you'll love feeling the wind in your mane.


I mentioned that I have been attending lectures at the RCA and I can't emphasize how interesting and stimulating they have been. I am really being changed by the experience, as you can see here.
On Monday mornings the Printmaking Dept. brings in a visiting artist. So far they have all been former RCA students. I have attended three talks and they have all been very interesting and all very different from each other. One I may have mentioned is Dick Jewell, who has worked with found photographs from photo booths, magazines, etc. and also does film/video and his own photography.
The second person was Marilene Oliver who just graduated a couple of years ago and currently has an exhibition in London that I haven't made it to yet. Her work is very beautiful and intriguing. A project she presented was one in which she had her family: mother, father, sister and herself, put through an MRI scanner and had images taken every 2 cm. These were then screen printed onto plexi and stacked together in such a way that they created a cubic life size transparent representation of each of them. She has worked with seed beeds hanging on threads to create images, and acupuncture needles poked into foam to create images. Very thoughtful, tasteful and delicate work. I liked her work a lot.
This week we had a presentation by Adam Dant, who started publishing, writing and distributing his own artist's newspaper under the name Donald Parsnip 15 years ago when he graduated from RCA. He has done a variety of projects in a variety of ways under this invented identity like writing for the Independent newspaper as a ficticious art critic. One project that I particularly liked was a language creation project in Paris. He advertised for students to create new words for things that didn't have words. This is actually a kind of game that Bob and I have done with our friends Dan & Freela for years. But he took it to another level. They invented the words, wrote up a dictionary and then proceeded to try to get them into the local vocabulary. They had their best success in small villages. One word they made up was for "the croissant that was bigger than all the others at the bakery" One of the students went into a local bakery and asked for the (?) (sorry I've forgotten the word!) When the baker didn't know what it was, the student explained and got the croissant. The next day they sent in a different student to the same bakery asking for the same thing. This time the baker knew exactly what the person wanted and gave them the biggest croissant. Eventually over time, the baker could be heard to ask someone who wanted a croissant if they wanted the (?) and explaining to them what it was, thus introducing the word into the local vocabulary. Pretty clever!
So, the Printmaking Dept has one set of presentations, but there are many more.

There are four different Critical and Historical lectures throughout the week. They come under the titles of "In The Realm of the Senses", "Aesthetic Theory and the Contemporary Moment", "All Tomorrow's Futures" and ""On the Road To Nowhere: Modernity & Monotony". Mon Weds Thurs & Fri I can attend a one hour lecture on a different topic each day. All with very clever titles to lure you in, such as, "Earlids & Brainlids: on thoughts and sounds", "The Colour of Time (god is a lobster)","The Future of Fun" and "Boredom in Photography". I have tried to attend as many as I can. The students enroll for one and just attend once a week, but I'm such a keener I go about 3 times a week.
The wonderful thing about the RCA is that there is such a large population in London PLUS they can bring visiting artists and lecturers in from other Universities not only from London, but all of England, AND Europe, for the day and it's no big deal. In Calgary, we have limited resources locally and to bring anyone in from outside means long travel distances and accommodation and just a huge amount of expense. But these guys get people from all the other Universities and Colleges in London and Oxford and Reading and Bristol and on and on and on. There have been historians, philosophers, artists and Sony game developers. Only one lecture was so dense and philisophical that I only understood about 1/3 of what he said and one was a little simplistic, but then it was about video game developments, so not too surprising. I have enjoyed them all and am just soaking it all up.

Mobile Phone

I do have a mobile phone no. (much to Bob's amusement) and since I don't have Pat Chisholm's e-mail address with me and the RCA is a bit like getting into Fort Knox, I thought I would send it out into cyberspace for anyone who might need to contact me. So Pat, this is mainly for you and Don. Look forward to seeing you.
07722198143
I'm not sure what the country code is or how you call me from outside the country.

Ramblings

My daily routine is to go out and videotape/photograph, visit galleries/museums/sights in the morning, go to RCA for visit artists/lectures in the afternoon, blog and check e-mail around the presentations. I don't usually get home until 8 or 9 at night, and I make something to eat, read, write, sleep.
In response to Brother Jim's questions:
1. Food. I haven't really eaten out that much. I usually have breakfast at home, make a sandwich and stick it in my backpack for lunch and make something quick and easy for dinner. My roommates are all pretty healthy eaters and make delicious soups, salads and pastas and rice with all kinds of veggies. I guess they are all English and THEY eat really healthy and small amounts. Tom did go to his aunt's on Sunday and seemed quite pleased that he "snagged" a roast beef dinner. I notice that the grocery stores all have lots more organic produce than in Canada. There are large numbers of ethnic restaurants and the Cafe at the school has really healthy sandwiches. I did eat ONCE at the Cafeteria at the RCA and it was actually not very good. A chunk of beef slathered in some kind of sauce with rice and mixed veggies (the awful ones with lima beans and corn and carrots...you know what I mean, blech!), but that is cafeteria food and I think it is the same everywhere. Someone said it wasn't very good because it was Friday and they tend to kind of get rid of all the leftovers on Friday.

Dallas took me to a very cool little place on Bethnal Green Road on Friday after our tour of some East End Galleries and Project Centres with his students from the London College of communications. It used to be frequented by the Cray Brothers (or is that the Kray Brothers?) of dark animation fame. It was completely lined with inlaid wood panelling, like stepping into a jewellery box. It was Italian, and had been in one family for 3 generations. Very tiny, very friendly. Like being in someone's kitchen. My favourite kind of restaurant. The food? Pretty typical British and Italian fare - meat pies, beef and mashed potatoes and pasta, but just your regular good old fashioned bowl of pasta. Nothing fancy, but not expensive either. They gave me a free piece of bread pudding to take with me and said that I should come back and get some to take back to Canada with me! It is their grandmother's famous recipe.

2. The Globe Theatre. I walked past the Globe theatre. It is right beside the Tate Modern. I saw them again today, from the other side of the Thames and took this photo. The Tate Modern is the massive big building with the large smoke stack and the Globe is to the left of it. It is a small white building. Don't know if you can see it very well. Will have to put it on my list of things to do. They do tours. I'm not much of a tour kinda person, just enjoy drifting around on my own. Hate the line-ups and crowds, but I'll look into it.

3. Yes, I have heard of Banksy and I think I have one photo that might be his work. It says "To advertise here call 0800 Banksy" He does apparently operate in the East End of London and that's where I am. He was brought to my attention by Marjan Eggermont who teaches at UofC. I am working with her and her class (when I'm there) and she showed us slides of his work. I came across a whole book written about him at the Hayward Gallery the other day.


I got off at the Tower Bridge stop today to see what was around there. Well, the Tower of London for one thing, and mobs of people. It is mid-term break for all the schoolchildren in Britain, so there are lots of people everywhere. Not the week to go to any museums, but I did go to the Nat'l Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery and the Hayward Gallery and the crowds weren't too too bad at those places. It's places like the Natural History Museum, the V & A and the Science Centre that are packed. I walk past all of them on my way from the tube to the school and there are long lineups snaking down the sidewalk.
I walked along the Thames from the Tower Bridge past London Bridge past a couple of other bridges and caught the tube at Blackfriar's Bridge. Lots of bridges and lots of interesting things to see along the Thames. I have been making some videos. Little 5 minute clips of the Thames and the Regent Canal reflections on the water with the sounds of London. I probably would benefit from some better sound recording equipment, but I am really enjoying these little snippets of London. First time I think I've felt like I'm doing something interesting with video. Very slow to watch, but quite interesting in many ways I think.

I am also continuing to do two self-portrait series. One of my reflections in various reflective surfaces and another in mirrors. I guess mirrors are reflective surfaces too, but somehow these photos seem to be about something different than the reflections in glass.

A Contest or a Trick

When you read this posting,
I want you to click on the comment button underneath it
and write the first thing that pops into your head.

The Tube

First of all, Happy Valentine's Day and love to all. Seems like everyone in London was walking around with red roses today. (obviously I didn't get this posted yesterday, so belated greetings. They kicked me out of the library at 8:45 pm before I was finished.) Second of all some of you have written that you have sent a comment but can't see it. They seem to show up under the comments for the entry you clicked on, so look again and you might find it further back. I have been posting them. And yes, I am checking my e-mail daily, except on weekends. I've had a comment from an RCA student and a potential student. Nice to know others are looking.
And now let me tell you more about the TUBE, or the London Underground, as it is officially known. Of course if you want any history you will have to read a book. I'm not going to tell you that. I'm going to telling you about my observations and the nuances I have noticed in my last two weeks of riding the tube.

This is what it looks like in Liverpool St. Station. In the morning everyone walks briskly to the tube. I feel like an ant, or someone in the army marching in time. Don't hesitate. People are very impatient. You have to stay focussed to keep up with the flow and not get trampled.

Here I am taking a photo of myself. It's a little shakey as you can see. It must have been at night, since most of the time the trains are full or at least there are some people on. I'm a little nervous about taking my camera out on the tube as I think Barton told me that when he starting snapping photos in a tube station the police came and asked him what he was doing and he had to get a special pass. They are a little nervous after the bombings. I notice there are no garbage cans in the tube stations, but I guess this goes back 15 years or so because of the IRA bombings. There is a huge police presence. This morning there were even more and some had dogs. Something must have been up. They also had Royal Albert Hall cordoned off and protected by police this morning. I asked one of the policemen what was happening. He said there was a musical performance coming up and the military bands were practicing in Albert Hall.


There are lots of interesting posters lining the walls of the underground walkways.

Here is the sign that tells you what train is next. I discovered them after my intitial confusion as to how you could tell what train had arrived. The other thing I have found out is that the reason I was so confused about the East/West thing was because when I get on the train to go to the RCA I take the Circle Line going East, and when I get the train going home, I take the Circle Line going East. No wonder I was confused.
The tube is quite expensive. £3 per day. Multiply that by 2.2 to get the equivalent in dollars. I bought a monthly pass. A little cheaper but makes a dent in your wallet. I was told my money would evaporate in London and it does!
When you are riding the train you will need something to do if you are going any distance. Of course during rush hours it is completely packed and you can just stand there and shuffle around occasionally when people need to get off. If you're lucky you might get a seat, but I doubt it, although people do seem to be pretty polite about giving up their seats to the elderly and people with young children or the physically handicapped. In the morning everyone is reading a paper. There is a free one, sort of like our Dose only not meant for young adults. It has a little more content and you can usually find one on the train if you forget to pick one up. Each newspaper is supposedly read by 10 people. Once the train starts to clear out though, the cleaning staff jump on with their little claw things and love snatching everything up as quickly as possible from arooud you, so don't leave your paper lying around. Actually the trains are pretty clean because of the cleaners.
There are lots of buskers in the underground walkways. They have "busking stations" and there is someone different there everyday when I walk by.


The main thing that people outside of rush hour people read on the trains is maps. Everyone seems to be staring at the maps on the trains. There really aren't too many ads on the trains because there are maps everywhere. And then people have their little pocket maps of the underground that you can pick up in the stations, and then there are people with their big tourist maps and of course the ever present A-Z London guides. You don't have to worry about looking like a stupid tourist because everyone does, so you just blend right in, and it's only Feb. I can't imagine what it's like in the summer. The other reading material is books, papers from work, text books and mobile phones. People seem to be madly textmessaging because they can't talk. On the buses everyone is talking on their mobiles.


When you are on the platform people are all standing about, but as their train approaches, they subtly move forward closer to the yellow line so that they can get on the train. Nothing worse than being left behind because the doors won't close. When standing on a crowded train, people watch for the movements that might indicate someone with a seat is leaving - the closing of a book, picking up a bag, leaning forward - then they start inching there way towards the seat so they can sit before anyone else gets it.
I am actually getting tired of the Tube. It seems to take so much time just getting to and from the stations and riding for about 1/2 hour. I have discovered some of the stops aren't all that far apart and it's much more pleasant to walk. You don't have any sense of where you are on the tube and you don't get to see the London Cityscape, which is still fascinating to me.

A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to the National Gallery

It poured with rain yesterday. First time, and it's stopped today. I decided I was going to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon in the National Gallery, but I didn't make it. First I noticed a market in a lane when I got off the bus, so I wandered over to see what it was and it was Petticoat Lane, only not the one I went to last week. Actually, it was the same one but greatly expanded and trickling down through another street for a few blocks. Even though it was raining, it was packed with people. It seems to be a good place to buy bargains. I asked the police if I could take their photo. They asked me if I had anything valuable in my pack. I said yes, another camera, and they warned me to wear it on my front. They had just been speaking to a woman who had her wallet taken from her backpack. Pickpockets, or should I say pickpacks, abound here. I can hardly get my pack open easily myself, but as they are probably more well practised than I, so I wore my pack on my front. There is quite a noticeable police presence in London. They are everywhere and often in these fluorescent vests which make them even more noticeable.
I took the tube to the stop nearest the National Gallery, but on my way there I noticed the National Portrait Gallery and decided to pop in there as well. I never do make it to the National Gallery next door because I spend the afternoon at the Portrait Gallery. It has three floors and many rooms full of...well...portraits.
I think of Jennifer S. when I see the intricate detailed painting on some of the clothing in the portraits. Also when I look at the miniatures show cases.
What I really notice though is that IT'S A MAN'S WORLD! As if I haven't noticed this before, but when confronted with portraits only, especially historical portraits, you would get the idea that the world revolved around royalty, war and science...and MEN. Very little evidence of women, unless they were married to someone, or someone's mistress. Even in the 19th/20th century their is about 1 portrait of a woman to every ten of men!
Isabella Mary Beeton AUTHOR OF HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT BOOK Queen Victoria QUEEN Lucie, Lady Duff Gordon AUTHOR/TRANSLATOR Jenny Lind SINGER The Bronte Sisters AUTHORS Elizabeth Barrett Browning POET Violet Manners ARTIST George Eliot NOVELIST Annie Rogers PROMOTER OF WOMEN'S HIGHER EDUCATION Dame Alice Ellen Terry ACTRESS Louise Jopling ARTIST Emmeline Pankhurst SUFFRAGETTE Dame Maud McCartney NURSE Amy Johnson AVIATOR It certainly does paint a different picture of the world when you focus on famous women's accomplishments.





I did see a very interesting digital portrait of Susan Adele Greenfield, Baroness of Greenfield b. 1955, Professor of Pharmacology, Oxford University, the first-ever woman director of the Royal Institution. Her area of specialization is the brain and she is also active in popularizing scientific ideas. The portrait is done by Tom Phillips (and here I thought he lived in Calgary and played with a band called The Men of Constant Sorrow!) Anyway, this was an interesting portrait as it was constantly yet subtly changing. If you walked past it, you might give it a glance, but if you walked by it a few minutes later it would look totally different and you might take note of it. It consisted of computer generated drawings and video and was made up of 169 drawings on paper, drawings onto computer screeen and short sections of video. This makes for 22,500 frames running on the computer. It certainly held my attention for quite a while.

A Walking Tour of My Neighbourhood

Here is the street that leads to our flat. It is a fairly mixed industrial area. I think there is a butcher shop on this street. I was walking to Liverpoole St. Station, which takes me about a half an hour. I thought I would document my walk and let you see what it is like around here.There is a very multiculture community here, which means lots of variety when it comes to food. I know to get off the bus on my way home when I see the Mosque, and when I step off the bus there is a Russian Bar. Burgers, kebabs, halal butchers, vietnamese restaurants, organic food stores all exist in a very small area. Everything is so dense here.




I see these letters everywhere I go, not just along this street. They are nicely done and I wonder about them. Someone tells me they are an art project and that the person doing them gets permission to paint on peoples security doors. Apparently they spell something out. I wonder where you would find out where they start and end and what they spell?
The street I'm walking down is called Kingsland Street at Orsman Road but as I travel down it, it changes names twice before I get to the Tube Station, from Shoreditch High Street and then to Bishopsgate. I wonder why they do that? The streetscape transitions as I move along it. From Multicultural, to hip with coffee shops and clothing stores that young people would like mixed in with clubs and then it becomes more business oriented.

If you look closely in the picture above you will see a man in a green shirt standing in the doorway looking at me. After I took the photo, he jumped out and said in an angry voice "Why are you taking a photo of my business?" I was actually trying to take a photo of the sign that said "Nigerian Money Transfer" I said, "I am a tourist from Canada and an artist and I am just taking photos of London" His demeanour changed immediately and he said "Welcome to London, I hope you enjoy your stay. I thought you were with the government!"

There are lots of interesting things posted along the way, graffitti (some good, mostly bad), posters about getting crackheads out of the neighbourhood and even a sidewalk gallery. When I first got here and was afraid I would get lost, Hayley told me just to look for the Gherkin. If I wanted to go to the tube station, I should go towards the gherkin and if I wanted to go home, I should be going away from the Gherkin. I wonder if the Gherkin is its real name or just a nickname since it looks kinda like a pickle? It is a striking piece of architecture. Very distinctive. But sort of like a beautiful bomb. The closer I get to the tube, the more shiney buildings I see and pubs. I know I am getting close when I see "The White Horse, Gentlemen's Venue" The pub names are quite amusing to me. Dirty Dick's, Woodin' Shades, there is one called The Spread Eagle. They do have fun naming the pubs and some are pretty clever wordplays.




You can also see that at the Liverpoole Street Tube Station, which also has trains going everywhere in England, there is a Starbucks on one side and a Cornish Pasty Shop on the other.That's enough for today. This is the third time I have written this up and uploaded the photos. Both other times I lost everything right when I thought I was almost finished. So enough of this. I want to get out and explore some more.